


Little Acts of Love

by redaurorarora



Series: Seven Types of Love [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon-typical language, Everyone Needs A Hug, Family Feels, Gen, No Incest, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29832603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redaurorarora/pseuds/redaurorarora
Summary: Five and the Hargreeves learn a little bit about caring for themselves and each other.Aka, additional scenes written for Seven Types of Love that didn't end up fitting in the main story.1. Allison and Vanya talk while they're on Five Watch, featuring Tired Five (Chapter 2)2. Klaus, Five, and Vanya discuss Five’s portrait, and Klaus thinks some about Operation Philadelphia (Chapter 3)
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Allison Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves
Series: Seven Types of Love [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194188
Comments: 6
Kudos: 64





	1. Allison and Vanya, ft. Sleeping Five (Chapter 2)

**Author's Note:**

> I'll add tags as they appear in the story. I'm not sure how many I'll actually have, but we'll see.
> 
> So, for the first one, I’m including the definition from the chapter because this scene was meant especially to represent it. It ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor because it didn’t move the plot forward, but I like the additional insight into Allison (which we’ll get more of later in the main story) and that it shows the aspect of philia that is pointing out flaws in kind, productive ways so they can grow together.

* * *

_Philia: Love based on friendship or shared goodwill. Real friends seek to live fuller lives together by relating authentically to each other and teaching each other about the limitations of their beliefs and the defects in their character._

* * *

The days that followed their return to 2019 had been a blur of siblings taking shifts sitting with their brother. Five would, at times, regain consciousness enough that they could make him drink some water or shovel soup down his throat, and someone needed to be there to catch him when he did so he didn’t starve or get dehydrated or just generally hurt himself. Because he was Five and, based on the sheer number of injuries he accumulated in the two weeks he'd been back with them, he would absolutely find a way to hurt himself.

Midway through the second day of Five’s convalescence, Vanya found herself sitting with Allison on her shift. Five Watch, they’d been calling. Only one watcher was required, but if two were available, they generally tried to keep one another company.

Today, Five was finally starting to respond to them in more than sluggish blinks and incoherent insults. Based on his unfocused eyes and slow reactions, the chances of him remembering any interactions he had with them were low, but improvement was improvement.

“Are you drugging me?” Five asked, not quite slurring but close.

“If we were, you would deserve it,” Allison responded. “Exactly how close were you to collapsing at any given moment over the past week?”

Five mumbled something. Allison took the opportunity to shove more soup in his mouth.

“You are exhausting,” Allison said.

“You’re exhausting,” Five retorted, then fell back asleep.

“He sure showed you,” Vanya said with a shadow of a smile as Allison put the bowl of soup back on the table beside her. Allison pinched her nose, but seemed amused at least.

“Lila?” Diego’s voice floated from downstairs.

Vanya turned to see woman in question leaning against the door watching their exchange. She didn’t seem to have heard Diego, though she pushed off the wall at being sighted, frozen like a deer in the road. Vanya offered her a small smile.

“Lila?” Diego shouted again, closer this time.

Lila cautiously returned Vanya’s smile before disappearing downstairs.

Vanya turned back to see Allison watching the spot where Lila was with suspicion.

“I don’t trust her.”

“Come on, Allison, give her a chance. We don’t even know her.”

“Don’t we though?”

“Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone deserves a second chance.”

Allison stared like she was trying to decide if that was a conversation she wanted to have right now. Vanya held her gaze. Stand-offs with Allison were always risky and rarely won. Vanya herself had seldom participated in them growing up. When she did finally stand up to Allison…well, that was why she valued second chances.

Somehow, miraculously, Allison decided not to push. Instead, she looked back down at Five.

“I told him we’d keep an eye on her,” she said, a telltale guilt seeping into her gaze.

“And now you don’t want to?” That certainly didn’t seem right. Not with the way she’d been eying Lila.

“It’s not that. It’s just…I have to see Claire,” she continued, almost begging. “Talking to her was amazing, but being away from her, knowing that she’s out there and I haven’t seen her or hugged her in two years.” She stopped and swallowed the tears that had been threatening to fall. “Now that I’m here…”

“You can’t stay.”

Allison sent a pleading look to Vanya but said nothing more.

“She’s your daughter,” Vanya continued. “He’ll understand you leaving for that.”

“I feel like I’m abandoning him. All of you, really. But I can’t be away from my daughter. I need to at least see her. Then come back.”

“You know if you go you won’t immediately turn around and come back,” Vanya said.

Tears formed in Allison’s eyes again. She squeezed them shut, but it only made the tears spill over faster.

“Hey, no, no, it’s okay,” Vanya continued. “It’s not a bad thing. You don’t have to convince me why you need to see your daughter. I may not be a mother, but I know what it feels like to care for someone and be separated from them. If I knew Harlan and Sissy were here, I’d want to see them too.”

Allison looked somewhat, though not completely, reassured.

“You should have seen him, Van,” she said, hand twitching like she wanted to touch Five, held off only because he’d hate it even in sleep. “He looked so relieved. If he hadn’t been exhausted, I doubt he would’ve let it show, but…he’s going to be so mad at me.”

“He’s not,” Vanya said. Five knew the importance of family, had apparently dedicated his whole life to it, which was a bit jarring compared to the arrogant 13-year-old she remembered. Whether he’d been secretly hiding an obsession with family or whether the trauma of finding them dead while trapped in an apocalyptic wasteland had irrevocably changed him, she would never know. Either way, the brother who returned was fiercely dedicated to saving their lives at all costs, whether he had their cooperation or not.

The problem was none of them knew exactly what trauma Five had and what might trigger it. Her first thought was abandonment issues, but that didn’t feel right. It seemed far more likely he’d think that he had abandoned them. No, abandonment issues were more her cup of tea – maybe Diego’s or Klaus’s too, though she’d need more time with them to investigate that further.

(God, she has been through so much therapy. She made a mental note to talk about the fact that she was now diagnosing her siblings’ issues at her next session.)

Trust issues, though? Those seemed assured, if only because they were well underway for all of the Hargreeves siblings long before Five ran off. She didn’t know what he’d dealt with at the Commission, but that Handler woman didn’t scream of trustworthiness. For Five to trust someone would have his back only to find out they were leaving him…

“You probably shouldn’t have told him you’d be here if you weren’t going to be though.”

Allison looked taken aback that Vanya hadn’t just tried to reassure her. “I didn’t tell him I’d be around or anything. I only said we’d keep an eye on her.” At Vanya’s raised eyebrow, Allison wilted. “But you’re right. I shouldn’t have committed to something, even vaguely. I just…to be honest, I was thinking about Ray - how I was leaving him behind - and the thought of being connected with family, especially Five…it made me feel better.”

Vanya understood that. Five had been gone for so long. When he’d come back, they hadn’t had time to actually sit down and reconnect. Everything had been putting out fires, everyone so caught up in their own lives that they didn’t try to get to know the person who showed up with their brother’s face. Now that things had calmed down, Vanya was looking forward to getting to know him again.

“I wasn’t even thinking about Claire, which sounds awful to say out loud,” Allison continued. “But I couldn’t because what if something went wrong? What if we’d changed the future or we jumped right back into an apocalypse? I would’ve lost it.”

“You have to do what’s best for you and for your daughter. He’ll understand.”

“I wish he didn’t have to.”

Five snuffled and turned onto his stomach to drool on his pillow. He may be 58 but he slept like a teenager, all sprawled out, sleeping hard like the apocalypse itself wouldn’t wake him. Bad phrasing. The point still stood though. It was objectively adorable and Vanya halfway wished she could take a picture. For blackmail purposes, obviously. As was her sisterly obligation.

“He said he wanted to meet her, you know?” Allison said with a sad smile. “Back before the first apocalypse.”

“I’m sure Claire would love that.”

“God, she would. She’s heard so many stories about all of you. Maybe I could convince him to fly out with me.”

Vanya shook her head. “He would never leave the family with an unknown element in play.”

Downstairs, they heard dishes clinking, Diego’s deep chuckle, and a light feminine laugh.

Allison deflated. “Yeah.”

“And,” Vanya started, taking a bolstering breath. “I think we should give Lila a second chance.”

“Are you serious? She tried to kill us.”

“She was manipulated by her parent. I think we can all sympathize with that.”

“Yeah, but we left him when we were 18, all except for Luther. We knew we were being manipulated. She-“

“Just found out her adoptive mother was responsible for killing her biological parents and that she’s been used her whole life. You know manipulation, but you don’t know what it’s like to realize that, after thinking you were your own person for years, your parent was still controlling your life and what information you have about yourself.”

And didn’t that strike a little bit too close to home.

Allison apparently thought so too, judging by the pitying expression. “Vanya…”

“I don’t want to talk about it. But I think we should see what Lila wants to do and see if she wants to stay.”

Allison didn’t say anything. No disagreement, but a clear lack of agreement as well. Five shifted again on the bed, this time just a readjustment rather than a full rearrangement. They sat until Allison’s shift was up and Klaus shooed them both out of the room.


	2. Klaus, Five, and Vanya (Chapter 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus, Five, and Vanya discuss Five’s portrait, and Klaus thinks some about Operation Philadelphia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place vaguely after Movie Night 1, early-ish in Operation Philadelphia. Early enough for Lila being creeped out by Five’s portrait to be fresh on Vanya’s mind, but late enough that Klaus has progressed to having his feet near Five.
> 
> And the next chapter of Seven Types of Love will be coming in the next few days. I just wanted to get this out before that.

Operation Philadelphia continued to progress. They’d made a habit of sitting together in whatever room suited them, sometimes the TV room, sometimes the sitting room, occasionally even one of their bedrooms, though those days were rarer. Today they were once again occupying the TV room.

Klaus got to work on his knitting – Ben’s book had been boring and, as much as he’d wanted to keep a piece of his brother alive, he’d had to shift back to his tried-and-true distraction - while Five worked on…whatever he was working on. It looked like he was writing equations in the margins of a math book. Did he do anything other than equations? Did he need to find Five a hobby? Surely, it couldn’t be that hard-

He stopped himself right there. Knowing Five, it would 100% be that hard to find him a hobby. Maybe an obscure competitive game? He tried to picture Five playing a competitive game, winced as he remembered the few times they’d tried to play Monopoly as kids. Those were dark days in the Hargreeves household. Days of which they would not speak. At least he could scratch anything competitive off his list.

“Oh, hey, you’re both here. Good.”

Five and Klaus both looked up to find Vanya hovering inside the doorway.

“Loving sister! How can we be of service?” Klaus said, turning towards her while very purposefully keeping his feet in proximity to Five. He was not giving up on his goals, dammit.

“Mom wants to know if we want chicken or beef for dinner tonight.”

“And you took it upon yourself to search us out and check for her?” Five asked.

“Well, I also wanted to ask, or I guess to say,” she paused, seeming to bolster herself, “maybe we should take the portrait of you down.” At Five’s blank stare, she rushed on. “Dad put it up so long ago, and it was really a warning more than a memorial, and with you being alive and all-”

“I will play frisbee with my own kneecaps before I see that portrait come down,” Five said.

Vanya gaped.

“Please,” Klaus said, “kneecaps are much too small to play frisbee with. You could skip them in the lake maybe. But you'd only have two, and where's the fun in that?”

In a delightful turn of events, Five was now also gaping. “There is something very wrong with you.”

“You're the one who wanted to play kneecap frisbee,” Klaus replied, flicking one of the magazines he’d stockpiled next to him over to Five with perfect frisbee form. Five slapped it out of the air.

Hey, maybe Five could get into frisbee! It was competitive, but if they made sure he didn’t have any weapons on him beforehand, maybe it could work out. Klaus made a mental note to further consider later.

Vanya waved a hand in front of her face like she was physically erasing the conversation from the air. “But you hate that portrait as much as the rest of us.”

“And Lila hates it more,” Five replied with his now signature tight-lipped smirk.

“Jesus, you’re a vindictive little shit,” Klaus said.

Five shrugged. “Turns out the grudges and cynicism of a 58-year-old mind mix interestingly with the pubertal biology of a 13-year-old body. The portrait stays up.”

Vanya made a help-me-out face at Klaus. He held his hands up in an I’m-not-touching-that gesture. She glared back.

“You don’t dislike Lila," Vanya said to him. “I don’t know why you’re encouraging this.”

“I’m not,” Klaus said casually. “I’m playing both sides. Classic middle child, you know?”

“Aren’t you, like, the second oldest now with the time you spent…traveling?” Vanya added, still glaring but now with a tentativeness that was exactly why Klaus preferred Five’s company to the rest of the siblings for the time being. As if the mention of time travel, even the mere implication of the existence of Dave or Ben, would cause him to shatter. He appreciated that they cared, but that didn’t mean he had to like how it manifested.

He pushed down his frustration and pasted on a grin. “But I grew up the middle child and that’s what counts.”

“We were all the same age growing up,” Five muttered under his breath.

Klaus elected to ignore him. “Tell Mom we want chicken.”

Vanya groaned and left. Klaus almost felt bad for her. They were all navigating a new world with each other and Vanya was doing her best to be the bridge between the siblings who were holed up on their own and Diego and Lila. Five wasn’t the easiest to handle in the best of circumstances, much less right now when he was still coming down from stopping the apocalypse and was adjusting to a very different life from the one he’d lived before.

“I didn’t say I wanted chicken,” Five grumbled.

“But you wanted chicken, didn’t you?”

Five pursed his lips and went back to his book.

There was something bothering Five. Klaus couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but he could see it whenever they were all together. Five hovered more at the outskirts of their group, not actively participating unless he was prodded into it. Whenever Lila poked at him, his gaze would become disproportionately sharp. Maybe it was just how Five was now. He’d been gone a long time and the time since he’d returned had probably been more of a high-stress outlier than the norm in terms of how he would behave. Still, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Ben scratched at the back of his head telling him something else was going on. He’d just have to stick around and figure out what it was. For Five’s sake, of course. No other reason at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t particularly think Five would want the portrait to stay up, but I was delighted by this scene, so here it is.


End file.
